The Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group works to help people whose rights have been violated and investigates cases involving such abuse, as well as assessing the overall human rights situation in Ukraine. The Group also seeks to develop awareness of human rights issues through public events and its various publications

In Rozdilna (Odessa region), several blocks were cordoned off by police while municipal workers pulled down leaflets with information against a parliamentary candidate from the Party of the Regions, Oleksandr Presman.

UNIAN quotes the CIS-EMO Mission as saying that in Rozdilna, which is in the 139th single-mandate electoral district, the police blocked the area and would not allow people in until the leaflets had been stripped off.

CIS-EMO reports that the leaflets appeared during the night from 7 to 8 October. The area was cordoned off by early morning with the municipal cleaners instructed to remove the leaflets and people not being allowed to photograph them.

“Local residents say that such a reaction is in marked contrast to the total connivance in cases where the same parliamentary candidate infringed electoral legislation”, the Mission’s news release states.

On 2 October, for example, the Odessa Regional Branch of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine reported an unprecedented level of voter bribing in the region during September. It accused Presman of totally ignoring electoral legislation with his campaign staff carrying around food parcels around the district on 21 September, while wearing Party of the Regions jackets and with the parcels being accompanied by a leaflet advertising Presman.

UNIAN mentions that a scandal broke out in autumn 2011 over Oleksandr Presman who is a Party of the Regions deputy of the Odessa Regional Council who proved to have double nationality (Ukrainian and American), this being prohibited in Ukraine.